Driver Charged In Deaths Of Friends

May 18, 1996|By C. RON ALLEN Staff Writer

For three months, Daniel DeMore waited, not knowing whether he would be held responsible for the death of his three colleagues who died when his car plunged into an alligator-infested canal west of Boca Raton.

This week, his worst fears were confirmed when Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies charged him with the deaths.

Investigators said DeMore and the three women used the drug known on the street as "roofies," smoked marijuana and had been drinking shortly before the crash.

Moreover, the women who drowned in the crash were legally drunk, sheriff's officials said.

"Daniel said they were drinking alcoholic beverages, ingesting the Rohypnol drug, smoking marijuana and eating the same food together," investigator Salvatore D'Alessandro said in his arrest report.

On Friday, a judge ordered the 20-year-old Margate man held in the Palm Beach County Jail on $15,000 bail. Detectives charged him with three counts vehicular homicide and manslaughter by culpable negligence. He also was charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving death.

Investigators said the four - a closely knit group of friends who worked together at the Ruby Tuesday in Mizner Park - closed the restaurant on Feb. 12 and went bar hopping in the city.

They were traveling along an isolated stretch of road to look at alligators when the accident occurred.

D'Alessandro said DeMore was driving about 55 mph when the car reached the end of Lox Road and vaulted up an embankment leading to an abandoned fishing camp about six miles west of U.S. 441.

"We were talking and laughing, and the next thing I know the car is in the water," DeMore said in an earlier interview. "There were no reflectors to tell you it was ending right there. You could barely see the fence. If you look where the car went, and how it went in the water, there are no skid marks."

Later that morning, DeMore flagged down a deputy seven miles away from the crash site. He was soaking wet, bloody, had a concussion and was too incoherent to tell the deputy what happened.

The following day, a wrecker retrieved the Mitsubishi from the murky water. Inside were Paulette Dorn, 23, of Lauderhill; Michelle Bartolotti, 21, of Pompano Beach; and Ann Marie Golden, 28, of Deerfield Beach.

DeMore initially told investigators that one of the women was driving because he was too drunk to drive, D'Alessandro said.

He also said he escaped the submerged car through an open window on the side where he was sitting, he continued.

But he recanted under oath.

He said he was the driver, that they had been using drugs and drinking before the crash, D'Alessandro said.

DeMore also told investigators that he "made every effort to try to find his passengers under the water, but the water was too dark and full of vegetation," D'Alessandro said.

DeMore regained his memory one day after the accident and was able to tell his story.

It is not known whether DeMore's loss of memory was from the concussion or the roofies.

Roofies often are used to induce stupor as well as temporarily disable victims of rape and robbery. Hence, when Rohypnol is used in a rape, the victim often can't remember what happened.